DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Acolyte, v. 1, issue 4, Summer 1943

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Acolyte, v. 1, issue 4, Summer 1943

Page 11

this, and with each crazy figure devised by the drunken stars a year seemed shed, a tedious year from the courtyard and the altar, and strangely, yet expectedly, from her likewise. She ran with joy to the altar and stood upon it, poising on the carved stone, expecting, desiring, demanding...and then the stars retreated into mist, and about her the idols, tumbled grotesquely among the stones of their ruined house, stared with oblique or inverted eyes at the sky which had roofed their former grandeur.
Leyenda awoke a long time later. She did not tell Dal of her experience, but occupied herself picking berries all morning and afternoon till the closer bushes were stripped. She was nearly out of his sight along the cliff's edge before she had enough. The coloured sky gleamed like porcelain, the world of the previous night seemed unthinkably far, yet she was not easy. There was her bracelet for one thing; it seemed tighter than usual. She wondered why it would not come off. Repeated hammering with stones had done nothing aside from bruising her arm. It gripped her like an exorable hand--the hand, she vaguely felt, of the past of this place of whose history nothing was known. She wondered who had lost the baubel--shackel-- in that unrecorded yesterday. She wondered who had built this and the other ruins scattered over her land, mounted by the vine, invaded by the forest; and at the coming and receding over the centuries' shore of the tide of their inhabitants.
As she came back, Dall called down to her.
"I think we'd better have a fire at night."
Thinking she had misunderstood him, she tossed the long hair from her ear.
"We need a fire, I think. There are animals here."
A fire! Something to draw destruction on them! What if her brothers were still searching? She was very near now: he sat up and pointed to the north side of the cone. Where the bricks had slid away, something had dug a burrow in the clay side. The beast which made it must have been large and had large claws.
"Look at it," said Dal, "and find out what it was after. Perhaps roots we can eat ourselves."
She put her berries down and examined the planed side of the pyramid. There something the color of ripe corn glittered from its clay matrix. For the second time the ruin had cast up treasure. A gold knife, long as her arm from wrist to elbow and scrolled over with words in a language which had no other monument, lay exposed. Conscious of the weight on her arm, she would not touch it.
They discussed the find uneasily, and decided she must put a great rock over it, and planned for a fire. When night came, they had a yellow blaze in the entrance to their makeshift hut. Fuel had been gathered and stored inside, and they were to keep alternate watch. Only the unknown land, and the unknown watchers therein, could see the flame... no one in the east, whence pursuit might yet come. And now they were confident Dal could walk in two days more.
The beast, if it came, was baffled by the stone, but something worse happened. From too much hobbling about, or from lack of sleep when guarding Leyenda, Dal complained of a fever, and before the second flame was kindled, was aflame himself. It had come so rapidly that the girl crouching beside him, touching his lips and cheeks, could not understand that he was ill. She sought to arouse him, and then when he turned away, sat up vigilant and perplexed while his sighs grew heavier. The indifferent flame popped and flickered and nearly escaped for lack of tending while she sat there. A sound aroused her finally, a pebble sliding, and she listened for the beast and watched the man and thrust twigs into the fire until dawn.
By noon of the following day she was going often to the well and

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Saving...

this, and with each crazy figure devised by the drunken stars a year seemed shed, a tedious year from the courtyard and the altar, and strangely, yet expectedly, from her likewise. She ran with joy to the altar and stood upon it, poising on the carved stone, expecting, desiring, demanding...and then the stars retreated into mist, and about her the idols, tumbled grotesquely among the stones of their ruined house, stared with oblique or inverted eyes at the sky which had roofed their former grandeur. Leyenda awoke a long time later. She did not tell Dal of her experience, but occupied herself picking berries all morning and afternoon till the closer bushes were stripped. She was nearly out of his sight along the cliff's edge before she had enough. The coloured sky gleamed like porcelain, the world of the previous night seemed unthinkably far, yet she was not easy. There was her bracelet for one thing; it seemed tighter than usual. She wondered why it would not come off. Repeated hammering with stones had done nothing aside from bruising her arm. It gripped her like an exorable hand--the hand, she vaguely felt, of the past of this place of whose history nothing was known. She wondered who had lost the baubel--shackel-- in that unrecorded yesterday. She wondered who had built this and the other ruins scattered over her land, mounted by the vine, invaded by the forest; and at the coming and receding over the centuries' shore of the tide of their inhabitants. As she came back, Dall called down to her. "I think we'd better have a fire at night." Thinking she had misunderstood him, she tossed the long hair from her ear. "We need a fire, I think. There are animals here." A fire! Something to draw destruction on them! What if her brothers were still searching? She was very near now: he sat up and pointed to the north side of the cone. Where the bricks had slid away, something had dug a burrow in the clay side. The beast which made it must have been large and had large claws. "Look at it," said Dal, "and find out what it was after. Perhaps roots we can eat ourselves." She put her berries down and examined the planed side of the pyramid. There something the color of ripe corn glittered from its clay matrix. For the second time the ruin had cast up treasure. A gold knife, long as her arm from wrist to elbow and scrolled over with words in a language which had no other monument, lay exposed. Conscious of the weight on her arm, she would not touch it. They discussed the find uneasily, and decided she must put a great rock over it, and planned for a fire. When night came, they had a yellow blaze in the entrance to their makeshift hut. Fuel had been gathered and stored inside, and they were to keep alternate watch. Only the unknown land, and the unknown watchers therein, could see the flame... no one in the east, whence pursuit might yet come. And now they were confident Dal could walk in two days more. The beast, if it came, was baffled by the stone, but something worse happened. From too much hobbling about, or from lack of sleep when guarding Leyenda, Dal complained of a fever, and before the second flame was kindled, was aflame himself. It had come so rapidly that the girl crouching beside him, touching his lips and cheeks, could not understand that he was ill. She sought to arouse him, and then when he turned away, sat up vigilant and perplexed while his sighs grew heavier. The indifferent flame popped and flickered and nearly escaped for lack of tending while she sat there. A sound aroused her finally, a pebble sliding, and she listened for the beast and watched the man and thrust twigs into the fire until dawn. By noon of the following day she was going often to the well and -- 11 --